Global Health Fellows
Global Health Fellows is a cohort of students that are conducting research in the Global Health realm ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and more. Global Health Fellows allows students who are passionate about communities throughout the world to conduct research on their desired topic and allows students to further their passions through a more focused path.
For a student to be recognized as a Global Health Fellow:
- Develop and agree upon a project proposal for this upcoming academic year with a Sponsoring Faculty member in the Global Health sphere or willing to be involved.
- Provide specific outcomes for the project (Review Paper, Poster, Presentation, and/or Coordinated Activity/Program.
For any questions, contact Ria Shani or Dr. Sanker
APPLY TO BE A GLOBAL HEALTH FELLOW
Current Global Health Fellows
Ria Shani
My work looks at access to medicines, specifically on Baylor’s campus. Over 3.5 billion people across the world lack proper access to medications that they need, and over 10 million people die annually due to the lack of access to essential medicines. This issue can be addressed at the university level. This research seeks to advocate and change the access and affordability of drugs that are being made on Baylor’s campus. I hope to aim to improve medical innovation's licensing and the patent process to advocate for equity in low and middle-income countries, addressing global health disparities.
Victoria Agbeibor
My project centers on a partnership between the Meros Center, Sustainable Medical Missions, Kingdom Workers, and Baylor University. Sustainable Medical Missions is an organization that integrates faith and health, and it has developed successful programs focused on assisting local leaders around the world in initiating projects that create sustainable change in their communities. The goal of my project is to develop a descriptive model of Sustainable Medical Missions’ framework in a way that can be replicated and understood by others.
Kylie Allen
My name is Kylie Allen, and I am a junior Business Fellow on the pre-medical track. I am excited to be participating in the Global Health Fellows Program where I will be working with Baylor College of Medicine's Dr. Wen-Hsiang Chen in the Texas Children's Hospital—Center for Vaccine Development (TCH-CVD). My project focuses on advancing Lyme Disease (LD) vaccine development by understanding our LD antigen's characteristics and analyzing its quality and stability. This data will contribute to public health advancement, with the ultimate goal of raising awareness about the prevalence and severity of LD.
Raghav Edara
Hi, my name is Raghav Edara and I'm a sophomore majoring in Biology with a minor in Poverty Studies and Social Justice. I work in Dr. Bryan Brooks' lab where I research the global occurrence of Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim in wastewater treatment plant influent, effluent discharges, and surface water. Through this project we hope to gain a more holistic understanding of global concentrations of these antibiotics and identify potential exceedance of Anti-Microbial resistance threshold values among geographic locations for these drugs, both of which are listed as essential medicines by the World Health Organization (WHO.)
Avery Kaye
Dengue virus (DENV) is a major public health challenge currently posing threats of significant magnitude in the Western Hemisphere. This work aims to adapt a DENV sequencing platform for use in our laboratory with the goal of future applications in low-resource settings. We used Oxford Nanopore sequencing technologies to investigate the genomic diversity and lineages of the different serotypes, enabling the application of more advanced phylodynamic and phylogeographic techniques. An understanding of the DENV genome at a molecular level requires an effective and universal sequencing method that will encourage the further integration of genomics as a predictive model for future virus outbreaks.
Sai Sagireddy
This year, I am working on understanding the levels of cell-free mitochondrial DNA (DNA fragments that detach from mitochondria) in relation to Environmental Enteric Dysfunction, an acquired syndrome of inflammation, reduced absorptive capacity, and reduced barrier function in the small intestine that is recognized as pervasive in Lower Middle-Income Countries and the leading cause of childhood growth faltering globally.
Suhannah Soman
As a TDRIP Intern, I had the opportunity to work on a protein-based vaccine for Lyme disease. As a Global Health Fellow, my project now shifts more towards viewing Lyme disease using a public health lens. Lyme is a global health issue that affects millions around the world. By developing a resource center — LIMES Against Lyme (Legions In March for Elimination of Sickness), I will be able to help raise awareness about this disease, its symptoms, preventative measures, and treatments. By aiming my project towards providing such resources to all types of communities, I am renewing my personal efforts to improve global health literacy. My hopes for the creation of such a database are to spread public awareness of Lyme and to advocate.
Ella Whatley
Chagas disease, caused by parasitic infection by Trypanosoma cruzi, afflicts over 8 million people worldwide, and can lead to deadly Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy. In order to better understand T. cruzi for potential vaccine development, the National School of Tropical Medicine at BCM is employing immunopeptidomics. Via mass-spectrometry, BCM is able to generate large amounts of data concerning characteristics of individual peptides from T. cruzi-infected cells. Working with faculty in the Baylor Department of Statistical Science, I am performing data analysis to find patterns and overall learn more about the molecular makeup of T. cruzi.